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HI Bernard. My guess would be that many of the loans advanced by the banks in December might have been approved in November, and might not therefore have been impacted by the CCCFA changes. We may have to wait a bit longer to get a true measure of the facts (if any!). Another point is that we don't see large numbers of complaints from people who obtained loans.

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Jan 31, 2022Liked by Bernard Hickey

It makes sense that happiness levels off as income increases and the relationship to the poverty line is a compelling reason why. However, I'd suggest that with the increased costs of living and generally flat wages, the poverty line is shifting upward and incomes need to increase commensurately.

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Jan 31, 2022Liked by Bernard Hickey

The OECD is right about house prices. The Labour Government knows that what is needed is an annual tax on land to curb enthusiasm for property investment. Instead, when Covid struck it set the money-printing presses rolling and showered banks with billions to lend to inflate house prices, instead of distributing the largesse to everyone as helicopter welfare. Now it must reverse that process, and that will be painful.

On superannuation the OECD is dead wrong.

NZ Superannuation will continue to be affordable without raising the retirement age as long as (a) New Zealanders are taxed appropriately on both income and wealth, and (b) NZ Superannuation, which is a welfare benefit, goes to those who need it.

Susan St John has proposed an elegant means of sorting the sheep from the goats by having those who sign up for NZ Super on an alternative tax regime that would discourage those over-65s with significant other income from applying:

https://cdn.auckland.ac.nz/assets/business/about/our-research/research-institutes-and-centres/RPRC/PensionBriefing/Pension-briefing-2021-2-NZS-as-basic-income.pdf

(According to Modern Monetary Theory we could go further: as NZ Super is an internal cost paid in New Zealand dollars, the Government could set the printing presses rolling, as it did so generously for property owners last year, and extend NZ Super to every adult as a universal basic income. All that would be needed in exchange would be to have a significant tax on wealth to withdraw excess money from circulation to subdue inflation.)

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During the war house building was adapted to include locally available concrete which was surfaced and flat roof wooden houses asphalt roofed and often black stained to continue building the a NZ iconic classics and still stand today. Why aren’t we developing these en made now? Affordably? And direct funding via state advances. Investing in local manufacturing and supplies and get on with it. We don’t need imports, banks or these rules to get things done. We also have the capacity for earth pressed homes and hempcrete we can grow here at scale and profit.

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One swallow does not a summer make - as goes the old English saying.

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I noted that Christopher Luxon has endorsed the OECD report recommending increasing age of eligibility for super, as to the likely political impact of this policy Christopher need look no further than David Cunliffe’s catastrophic election defeat 27 September 2014.

While National appears to have difficulty understanding the downside of this policy it is fairly straightforward, the NZ employment market is characterized by rampant ageism, if made redundant over 50 the working assumption of the HR hirers is that all persons over 50 have been compelled to have a full frontal lobotomy at 50 year of age and are useless.

Given the ageist employment market NZ has referring to life expectancy is an irrelevance, when National can come up with policies to address ageism then it can justify raising the age of eligiblity. Otherwise it is just condemning thousands of older redundant workers to years of subsistence living on the dole.

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